How I Met Your Mother
by Averant
Summary: An angry Harry makes for a reckless one, and what could be more reckless than squaring off against the mother of Sirius Black?


The grandfather clock in the hall outside of his room chimed three times. Every person in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was sleeping soundly in preparation for a new day. All, except for one. Harry Potter laid on his bed and seethed. It was the summer before his fifth year at Hogwarts and already the year had started off on an extremely sour note. Surviving a dementor attack was a harrowing situation on its own; combine that with the anxiety of a disciplinary hearing that, if handled badly, might lead to his wand being snapped, and Harry was a roiling cauldron of emotion with no outlet.

Frustration was not a new emotion to Harry.

All his life he'd dealt with bias and unfair situations. First was the Dursleys and their despicable combination of neglect and punishment. Once he'd arrived at Hogwarts it was Snape and his appallingly blatant prejudice and petty vendetta that was simply ignored by anyone who had any sort of authority over him. Those were only the most obvious examples; There were dozens of other, smaller problems that were often too small to make any fuss over, or were simply too much trouble to follow through on. In the past he'd simply bottled it all up and (mostly) forgotten about it, as he knew that there had never been anything he could do about it, and hashing on things that he couldn't affect was a short trip to insanity.

Recently though, that drop-box in the back of his mind seemed to have lost its lid, and all of his annoyances and frustrations were bubbling over and creating a right mess in his psyche. Half remembered grievances and scarcely dwelt upon grudges were snapping to the front of his mind every time he saw one of his fair weather friends. This made it impossible to keep his temper, and even while he desperately wished he could throttle them for their lack of commitment, he knew any action on his part would be unjustifiable, if not unreasonable. After all, they were all children in the end, and the amount of negative pressure that a mudslinging campaign could put on them through their association with him was impressive, to say the least.

No, he blamed the adults for that little facet of his life.

But despite the limitations imposed upon him by Headmaster Dumbledore's oh so benevolent care and the potential doom of his magical future, there was, he knew, _one thing_ that he could do something about in the time he had available to him. And that was figure out what the flying _fuck_ Walburga Black's problem was.

He already knew, objectively, why she wailed like a cat with its tail chopped off every time the curtain opened. God only knows (He never quite understood swearing to Merlin, it was like swearing to Dumbledore; Just... No.) the harridan never shut up about the mudblood stains dishonoring her ancestral home, or the blood traitor shame-of-her-flesh that inherited it. No, what Harry wanted to know was why an upstanding member of noble blood completely _lost her shit_ at every chance she got. Purebloods didn't do that. Purebloods strutted and sneered and trampled on your dignity like it was a carpet for them to clean their shoes on, but above all they did so with a sharp word and a smirk on their face. Walburga Black's actions flew in the face of everything he had read or observed about pureblood etiquette. Well, more observed than read. He may not have much academic knowledge on the topic, but there were plenty of people who he could base his theory on.

Draco, in a striking example of everything wrong with the world, sneered and strutted in an almost perfect facsimile of his father. Narcissa Malfoy, the one time he had met her, sneered, strutted, and looked damn fine doing it. Pansy Parkinson sneered and attempted to strut. She didn't quite have it down yet, but she made up for it with all her primping and simpering while she hung on Draco's arm. Crabbe and Goyle weren't strutting or sneering material, but they could do stoic and imposing just as well. Daphne Greengrass didn't strut or sneer either; she didn't need to. Her complete indifference to your presence cut you down to size in its own equally effective way, and her completely relaxed and graceful gait only highlighted that. Blaise Zabini projected an air of total boredom with the world. He managed to maintain it even while in the middle of hallway skirmishes, which, more often than not, goaded his opponent into making a critical blunder.

Hell, even the Black Family portraits maintained an aura of aristocracy. Phineas Nigellus could sneer and strut with the best of them, at least Harry assumed he could. The man never did so in his portrait, so Harry honestly didn't know. Cassiopia Black watched them all with sharp eyes, like she thought they might steal something, but wouldn't lower herself to accusing it. Pollux and Arcturas Black simply ignored the outside world and conversed among themselves most of the time. Even Walburga's husband, Orion, slept the day away in his frame, not dignifying his wife with the slightest bit of attention, something that Harry couldn't really blame him for. He'd want to be well shut of the woman too, if he'd been married to her.

All of these examples screamed to Harry that Purebloods were high class and old money. You were insignificant to them, and if you ever caught their attention, it was simply so they could grace you with their presence and make you realize precisely how low on the totem pole you really were.

Except for Walburga Black. She skipped over the 'ignoring the insignificant bugs' stage and proceeded straight to 'belittling with extreme prejudice'. So, either she was the exception to the rule, or she was lying, and because Sirius had regaled Harry with tales of what the ancient and noble House of Black thought of exceptions, he was pretty damn certain she was lying.

It was with this thought in mind that Harry abandoned his bed and marched downstairs to answer his question. He grabbed a chair from the kitchen and set it in front of the curtains, backwards so that he could sit and rest his head on his arms, and prepared himself for the consequences of failure. Mainly, ringing ears, a headache, and a telling off from every adult in the house. If it came down to it, though, Harry was fairly certain his magic was strong enough to force the curtains closed. He hoped.

But if not, that was what he had his invisibility cloak for.

Recently Harry had found that wandless magic was not that difficult, and actually fairly practical for the simpler, more straightforward tasks. A deep breath, a bit of irritation to fuel his magic, and a snap of his fingers saw the curtains flying open and the demon emerging from its slumber.

Amusingly, Walburga opened her mouth before she opened her eyes. She took a deep breath, straightened her spine, seemingly swelling in front of his eyes before she opened her own bulging eyes and prepared to let loose a sonic bombardment on some poor unsuspecting filthy mudblood blood traitor. Even more amusing was watching the verbal howitzer shell get lodged in her throat when she saw that he was waiting for her. It was clearly not something she was expecting, because Walburga stayed frozen like that for a full minute, gaping like a large mouth bass while they maintained eye contact. It took all of Harry's willpower not to crack up at the sight. He'd have to show Sirius the memory some day.

Eventually she seemed to realize the picture she presented and proceeded to disarm herself of her prepared diatribe. Her eyes shrank to their normal size, her chest decompressed from its inflated state, and her mouth settled into a prim frown. Impressively, she did it all without breaking eye contact. Harry, recognizing a challenge, set his focus and dug in. Seconds stretched into minutes as the two ocular combatants locked eyes. After seven minutes of staring, the Black matriarch broke the silence.

"You do realize that portraits don't need to blink?" she asked slowly, as if unsure if he was anything more than an intelligent monkey.

Harry immediately started blinking furiously and rubbing his eyes. "I do now," he muttered sourly.

Walburga merely raised a regal eyebrow. "Indeed. You have something to say to me, boy?"

"Just one for now. You've already confirmed one thing I was suspicious of." Harry finished massaging his eyeballs and stared accusingly at her. "What's with the whole Banshee act? Purebloods don't act like that."

Walburga's mild mood vanished with blinding speed. " _How dare you_!" she hissed. Harry flinched back, wondering if the Black matriarch was a new species of snake, with how venomous she sounded in that moment. "Filthy little monster! You dare insult me with such a crass comparison? Mutant freak! Abomination!"

Her voice rose steadily with each word, but Harry focused on the one thing that made sense. "Yeah, see, you're doing it again! You were perfectly pleasant a second ago, and now you're close to screaming again. There's no way you actually _like_ throwing your dignity under the bus!"

Walburga deflated again and settled more comfortably into her frame. "Oh, very well. Perhaps you're not completely useless after all."

"I knew it," he muttered, rubbing his temples. He was beginning to get emotional whiplash just speaking to this woman. "Then why?"

The woman somehow managed to make sniffing a haughty gesture. "Is it not obvious? I see I overestimated you. For your information, I am filling a vicarious role of bitterness, as well as gaining personal satisfaction from the debasement of my blood-traitor kin."

Harry ran the words through his brain. "Vicarious... debasement of... what?"

Walburga lifted her nose in disdain. "If you cannot fathom such simple words, then clearly there is nothing more to say. Begone, simpleton. Leave me to my rest."

Harry gaped as the curtains swept back into place of their own accord. While he had proven his theory correct, he felt like he had lost a battle he didn't even know he was fighting, and losing any kind of battle against what is technically an object just didn't sit right with him.

Harry shuddered as he put the chair back and returned to his room. He never thought he would say it, but this required research.


End file.
